Bosch Institute News, October to December, 2007
Bosch Young Investigators Symposium 2007
On Friday 14 December the 7th Annual Young Investigators Symposium was held in the Eastern Avenue Complex, University of Sydney.
With 20 oral presentations and an additional 42 poster presentations the day was heralded a great success and congratulations must go to the Symposium Organising Committee - Chris Austin (Pathology), Cedric Bardy (Anatomy & Histology), Angus Brown (Anatomy & Histology), Aaron Camp (Physiology), Rebecca Cole (Physiology), Nathan Gunasekaran (Pharmacology), Andrea Markus (Physiology), Sam Merlin (Physiology), Komal Prabhu (Pathology) and Kelly Skilbeck (Pharmacology)
Each Year cash prizes and certificates are awarded for outstanding oral and poster presentations and the 2007 awards were presented by Associate Professor Frank Lovicu who has taken on the role of academic coordinator for the Bosch Young Investigators for the past 2 years.
A highlight of the event was the announcement of the Bercovici and Rebecca L Cooper Prize recipients. These annual medals and prizes and are awarded for excellence in published research. Joshua Young received the Bercovici Prize (postgraduate) for his paper “Cortical reorganization consistent with spike timing – but not correlation-dependent plasticity” Nature Neuroscience and the Rebecca L Cooper (post doctoral) was awarded to Renae Ryan for her paper ““The uncoupled chloride conductance of a bacterial glutamate transport homolog” Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. Professor Carol Armour, Acting PVC research and Professor Anne Sefton, Deputy Chancellor, University of Sydney presented the awards and commented that it was quite extraordinary for both publications to be in the prestigious Nature family of journals.
The symposium was sponsored by 15 companies including: Genesearch;
Confocal Opening for the Advanced Imaging Facility
On 1 November 2007, Professor Brown, Vice Chancellor of the University of Sydney officially opened the new Zeiss LSM 510 Meta confocal microscope. This is the latest acquisition for the Bosch Institute’s Advanced Microscopy Unit.
The function was held in the Anderson Stuart Building and was well attended by invited guests, Bosch members and senior representatives from Carl Zeiss Australia who sponsored the event.
When asked the advantages of this new state of the art equipment Dr Cole commented “The Greek word ‘meta’ means going beyond and this microscope is certainly far more than an average confocal microscope!”
“The Zeiss LSM 510 Meta has four lasers that enable excitation of a wide range of fluorescent probes and five detection channels: three standard, one transmitted light and the Meta detector (that can also be used as a standard detector). Each detector has its own pinhole which allows for precise confocal imaging for each fluorochrome and important adjustments to be made for the use of multiple probes, such that the same thickness of tissue or cell is imaged in each case.
The Zeiss LSM 510 Meta confocal microscope also supports advanced confocal applications such as live cell imaging, selective photobleaching methods and Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). Such methods are now required and favoured by researchers throughout the Bosch Institute” Dr Cole added.
This instrument was purchased with funding from NHMRC Equipment Grant, University of Sydney Major Equipment Grant, Rebecca L. Cooper Medical Foundation and Research Infrastructure Block Grant. Executive Director Professor Nicholas Hunt expressed his gratitude to the funding bodies and commented on the cost effectiveness of providing large and highly specialized equipment through the Institute. The Advanced Microscopy Unit is one of three Bosch Core Facilities providing excellent training and on-going advice to all Bosch members.
The event marked nearly 12 months of negotiations and refurbishments in order to accommodate this state of the art instrument and the Bosch Institute would like to acknowledge the tremendous support it received from the Procurement Team and the Facilities Management Team of the University of Sydney and Professor Chris Murphy, Associate Dean, School of Medical Science.
Bosch Young Investigators Micrograph of the Year
On display during the opening, were 48 stunning micrographs taken by Bosch Young Investigators using a microscope in the Bosch Advanced Imaging Unit. Congratulations to Dr Michael Weible, who won the 2007 Micrograph of the Year Award and to runners up, Dr Richard Sarafian, and Dr Andrea Markus who were both given honourable mention.
Our thanks to Associate Professor Filip Braet (far right), Deputy Director of the Electron Microscope Unit, for judging the competition and Gavin Symonds (middle), Carl Zeiss Australia who presented the awards.
A New Golden Age in Biomedical Research?
A senior Bosch researcher has heralded a new ‘golden age’ of modern biochemistry and molecular biology brought about by our complete sequencing of the human genome.
In a paper entitled 'Qua vadis, genoma?' which appears in the December 2007 issue of the prestigious journal Trends in Biochemical Sciences, Professor Juergen Reichardt, Plunkett Chair of Molecular Biology (Medicine), says that the complete sequencing of the human genome has lead to the discovery of about 10,000 "unknown function" genes and millions of unknown genetic variants.
This discovery precedes a huge growth in biochemical and molecular investigations, pointing to the large number of ‘unknown’ genes that still exist in the human genome despite it now being fully sequenced for over 6 years.
Reichardt points out that these genes will be hugely important in future personalised disease prevention strategies and individualised therapies.
‘Because of the scale of the gene products that we effectively know nothing or very little about, it is highly likely that many hitherto unknown biochemical and molecular pathways remain to be discovered,’ he said.
However, he also points that the full biochemical, molecular and pharmacogenetic consequences of human genetic variations that make each human an individual need to be fully understood in order to make full use of the human genome sequence.
‘Such data would be important for rational presymptomatic disease risk assessment, personalised prevention and individualised therapy,’ he said.
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Book
Bosch researcher Professor Christobal Dos Remidios from the Muscle Research Unit is the editor of a new book “Protein Reviews – Actin-Binding Proteins and Disease”. The book is published through Springer and is the first book to link actin-binding proteins to diseases.
Bosch Tours
Professor Nick Hunt extended an invitation to senior staff from the University’s financial and administrative divisions to tour the Bosch Institute.
The tours were held on 15 & 16 October 2007 and proved to be an outstanding success. Those in attendance were most impressed by the explanation of the research undertaken in the laboratories of Professors Mason and Murphy as well as the explanation and “hands on” demonstration of the new confocal microscope.
Success for Professor Graham Johnston
Professor Graham Johnston has been awarded an honorary doctorate in Pharmaceutical Science (doctor pharmaciae honoris causa) by the University of Copenhagen in recognition of his work in promoting research links between that university and the University of Sydney.
Over many years there has been a very active research collaboration and exchange of staff and students between Copenhagen and Sydney in the areas of pharmacology and pharmaceutical chemistry.
The honorary degree was the first awarded by the newly established Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, which resulted from the recent incorporation of the Royal Danish School of Pharmacy into the University of Copenhagen.
The award was one of 15 honorary doctorates made at a ceremony in Copenhagen on 16 November. HRH Queen Margrethe II and HRH Prince Henrik attended the ceremony and greeted the Honorary Doctors. The ceremony was followed by a reception and later in the evening the Honorary Doctors and other guests of the University were invited to see La Bohéme in the Copenhagen Opera House.
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National Heart Foundation Grant
Congratulations to Roger Dampney and Jouji Horiuchi who received a grant from the National Heart Foundation for 2 years (2008-2009) for their work on Angiotensin-induced hypertension: brain pathways and mechanisms.
Success for Professor Roland Stocker
Congratulations to Professor Roland Stocker who was elected as Co-Chair of the International CoQ10 Association and who was successful in the 2008 Round of the International Program Development Fund - International Network Research Collaborations. The support received will help establish new collaborations with the laboratory of Professor Jay Heinecke (University of Washington, Seattle U.S.A.) and Professor Markus Wenk (National University of Singapore). The research relates to the development of new therapeutics against cardiovascular disease, using state-of-the-art proteomics and lipidomics methodologies.
National health and medical research grant successes for 2008
Congratulations to members of the Bosch Institute who have been successful with the National Health and Medical Research Council applications recently announced.
Grants Administered through Sydney University:
Helen Ball
Alex Bishop
Iain Campbell (noted three times)
Steven Chadban
Arthur Conigrave
Georges Grau
Gary Halliday
Nicholas Hunt
Nicholas King (noted twice)
Frank Lovicu
Rebecca Mason
Sue McLennan
Chris O¹Neill (noted twice)
Des Richardson (noted twice)
Alexandra Sharland
Huiling Wu
Bing Yu
Grants Administered through other Institutions:
Jonathan Arnold
David Cook
Bogdan Dreher
Brian Morris
Sincere congratulations for their success in what was, as usual, a very competitive round for Project Grants and Fellowships.
Australian Research Council discovery scheme successes for 2008
Congratulations to the following Bosch Institute members who were successful in obtaining funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery Scheme for 2007:
Maria Byrne
Simon Carlile
Chris Murphy
Australian Research Council linkage grant success for 2008
Congratulations to Professor Tony Weiss who was successful in obtaining an ARC Linkage Grant and who has also been appointed to the ARC College of Experts.
